Research · Deterrence Science · Market Evidence

The safest walk
is the one where
nothing happens.

50 years of criminology research establishes one consistent finding: visible surveillance deters opportunistic crime before it occurs. Eyezee is the first product built on that principle — not to record what happened, but to prevent it.

"The certainty of being seen is more powerful than the certainty of punishment." — adapted from Beccaria, 1764. Confirmed by controlled studies, 2022.

Fear of crime is
its own harm.

For millions of women and children, the threat of assault doesn't begin when something happens — it begins the moment they step outside alone. The behavioral impact of that fear — routes avoided, activities forgone, freedoms surrendered — is measurable, pervasive, and entirely unaddressed by existing products.

1 in 3
women globally report feeling unsafe walking alone at night
UN Women, 2021
83%
of women in the U.S. have experienced public harassment
Stop Street Harassment, 2022
68%
of street assaults occur within 1 mile of home or transit
DOJ NCVS, 2019
$0
autonomous deterrence products exist on the consumer market today
Competitive analysis, 2026

Every existing solution
responds after the fact.

Personal alarms, safety apps, location sharing, emergency buttons — all of these products assume a threat has already materialized. None of them deter. None of them prevent. They help with the aftermath, or they help someone find you. That is not safety. That is documentation of harm.

Safety apps (bSafe, Noonlight)
Share your location with contacts and emergency services.
Reactive. Requires incident to trigger. Provides no deterrence. Average response: 7–11 minutes.
Personal alarms
Emit a loud sound when activated.
Reactive. Requires physical proximity of threat to activate. No visual deterrence. No documentation.
Wearable cameras
Record footage when activated.
Reactive. Evidence collection, not prevention. Requires user to activate under duress.
Location sharing
Broadcast GPS coordinates to trusted contacts.
Reactive. No deterrence effect. Does not change perpetrator behavior. Does not reduce risk of initial contact.

Visible surveillance changes
perpetrator behavior.

The foundational insight of rational choice criminology is that most opportunistic offenders perform a rapid cost-benefit assessment before acting. The three key variables are: perceived probability of detection, perceived severity of consequence, and perceived vulnerability of the target. Eyezee directly addresses all three simultaneously.

Causal mechanism
01
Drone visible overhead
A lit, audible autonomous drone following the subject is unmistakably visible to anyone in the immediate environment.
02
Perpetrator perceives surveillance
The presence of the drone signals: this person is being watched, recorded, and their footage is being uploaded in real time.
03
Cost-benefit calculation shifts
Certainty of identification rises sharply. Rational choice theory: when detection probability increases, offense rate falls.
04
Threat abandons or avoids
Opportunistic assault requires a vulnerable, unobserved target. Eyezee removes both conditions simultaneously.
05
Nothing happens
The product's success is its own invisibility. No incident. No harm. No evidence needed — because deterrence worked.
What the research shows
51%
reduction in vehicle crime
from visible CCTV in parking areas
Welsh & Farrington, 2009 meta-analysis
23%
reduction in street crime
from public-space camera deployment
College of Policing, UK, 2013
36%
drop in assault incidents
in areas with active overhead surveillance
Ratcliffe et al., Temple Univ., 2011
7–11 min
avg police response time
to violent crime in progress, urban U.S.
DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2020

Mobile. Autonomous.
Impossible to ignore.

Fixed surveillance cameras create deterrence for their coverage area. Street lights create deterrence in their radius. Eyezee creates deterrence wherever she goes — a personal, mobile bubble of perceived observation that moves with the individual and cannot be avoided by route selection.

Visible by design
LED nav lights, audible prop noise, and a distinctive form factor make Eyezee unmistakable overhead. The deterrence effect requires the drone to be seen. It is.
Continuous, not reactive
Deterrence requires persistent perceived surveillance, not an alarm triggered after contact. Eyezee is present from deployment to destination.
Real-time upload signal
A trusted contact receiving live footage changes the perpetrator's calculation: not just 'I will be identified' but 'someone is watching this happen right now.'
120dB alarm — the last resort
If deterrence fails, Eyezee activates a 120dB alarm, alerts emergency contacts, and begins footage upload. The deterrence layer is primary. The response layer is backup.

Deterrence is not a guarantee. We say so.

Eyezee is designed for opportunistic street crime — the dominant category of personal assault, and the category most responsive to deterrence. It is not designed for targeted threats, organized crime, or adversaries who have specifically identified the user. We state this plainly because credibility matters more to us than marketing.

Eyezee will prevent all assaults
Eyezee deters opportunistic crime. Targeted, premeditated threats require law enforcement solutions.
Deterrence moves crime elsewhere
Individual-level deterrence protects this person on this route. She gets home safe. That is the product.
We have incident data proving deterrence
The product is pre-market. The deterrence literature is our evidence base. We'll build product data from deployment.
The alarm makes you safer
The alarm is a last resort. The deterrence layer is primary. Our goal is that the alarm is never needed.

Every claim here
has a citation.

The Eyezee white paper compiles the primary sources behind every statistic on this page — peer-reviewed studies, government datasets, and controlled trials spanning 50 years of criminology research.